


there it was

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [100]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Implied Relationships, Multi, Soulmate AU - Colors, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28396176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Rainbows of color, he was once told, and yet only red continues to visit.
Series: DS Extras [100]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Kudos: 15





	there it was

When he had been young, much younger than he was now, he had been told that the world was a beautiful place. 

That the blacks and greys and whites of the present would be erased into a rainbow of the future. That there was always another half, the split in the middle suturing to become one once more, and that everyone, no matter who they were, _everyone_ had a soulmate.

It was utter garbage to fill the minds of young children and keep them complacent, storytelling to fill the void of neglect, or promise a better future perhaps. Once he was old enough the glamor faded and he knew the truth, oh yes, but when Maxwell had been young, all the way back…

Well, it was a very hopeful little fantasy, wasn't it? 

When he had been a child, far from what he was now and even farther still from the world he had been born into, the stories were like fairy tales. Tales of what the world actually looked like, such remarkable things as hues and tones and shades, not just of grey and grey and yet even more grey. They caught him and his brother up in their clutches and some nights, keeping an eye on the door, the closet or even under the beds for the monsters that haunted them both, they'd whisper to each other and make guesses at what colors really were like.

Of course, it wasn't always just blacks and greys and whites, not everyday, no. Sometimes, sometimes those little flashes snuck in, and of the few only faint singular memories still held to his mind, long forgotten in the rush of another world's motives.

'This is camomile.' his mother had told him once, outside and tending to the garden as he ran back and forth fetching water for her. 'Look how pretty it is! Such a wonderful color.'

She was having one of her good days.

The flower she carefully held in her hands was round, flat white petals and the grey egg center, and he had tilted his head and gave it a perplexed look, because it looked like near every other flower in the garden and he didn't quite know why they had planted it here in the first place.

The moment of silence had him finally look up at her, and it was one of those very few times that she gave him a sad, soft little smile.

'Here,' she had said, and reached out, gently took his hand and brought him closer to the blooming flower she held. 'Can't you see? It is yellow.'

Young as he was he had went with it, squinting, narrowing his eyes and really staring down those dull shades of shadow, his mother holding his hand and the bloom and waiting.

As the seconds lengthened to minutes, he finally had to admit defeat, frown dragging along his face as he gave her a sad shake of his head, and he felt even worse, knowing he may have just ruined her good mood, ruined such a good day.

Instead, she just had that small smile on her face still, turning back to the flower and brushing the petals with her fingertips, her hand giving his a small little squeeze in reassurance.

'This little flower helps with many ills,' she hummed, 'that is why I planted them here. It will help us.'

The thought, that today _must_ be such a good day then, rose up in his mind and he had smiled back up at her just as something about the little flower flashed.

Enough to have him snap his attention to it, his mother's hand in his own and her words so kind, and that was the first color he had ever set eyes to.

It was bright, like the sun, bright and warm and yet clear as day or a cloudless sky, and its white hot petals surrounded the yellow in a roundabout that flickered and held to his eyes for a few moments longer.

His mother had laughed, happy for once, and he had held her hand and raised his other to touch the new color and stare awestruck at the vibrant change, awestruck by the very thought, very knowledge that it was real.

It was the first and last time he ever saw a color with his mother. There were little good days left.

His brother introduced him to the next one, and this one stuck around for much longer. It was also bright, not like the sun yellow but bright and harsh and _painful, angry_ , and red became something he near always saw, before and even after leaving his real world behind.

The first time had been upstairs, hidden away in their room and trying to help his brother as he held his broken nose. They were still young then, and yet he had been terrified.

Not for himself, no, and he worried and hovered and kept pestering, 'what should I do what should I do, how can I help does it hurt?' 

And then Jack had snapped at him, tears still in his eyes and face twisted into a snarl and hand lashing out to shove him and his hovering away, telling him to bugger off, he can fix it himself he didn't need no help!

For a split second, there was that flash, worry in his throat and wanting to help his brother with everything he had because this was his fault, wasn't it? He was the reason Jack had gotten yelled at, and he was the reason Jack had gotten hurt, and he wanted to help _fix_ that so terribly-

Instead the dark grey dripping from his brothers nose turned bright and sharp and mad, so ragingly mad, and he had stumbled back as expected and stared, stared as his brother stuffed a cloth up his nose, tilted his head back and then snapped the cartilage back into place with only a muffled cry, and he had blinked for only a split second before the new color was gone and back was the black and white and greys.

He had almost tried telling his brother, before watching him smear the dark grey to his shirt sleeve with a sniffle and decided to keep it to himself. At that point, he already knew his brother didn't care about those sorts of things anymore.

A long time before the red had first shown, his brother had seen a color with him, out in the woods. Back when they had been much younger, finding their own fun in the little things, before all the chaos that came with them growing up.

The forest had stayed grey and black for him, didn't change the whole day, but as they looked for bugs and came upon a particularly large spider, one he could almost identify, trying to spit out the name he knew he's seen in a book and yet not remembering it fully, his brother had gone still and listened closely as they watched the arachnid scuttle around.

It was black, grey spots about its fat body and long limbed, and he knew he's seen a picture of it somewhere but he couldn't quite remember the name. Leaning against his brother, he racked his brain for the name he's sure he's heard somewhere, it was too familiar to not know.

'...It's pretty.' His brother had said, peering down at it and its many shining eyes. 'And it's...it's not all black.'

He had paused in his rambling, about spiders and their limbs and what this one was probably for, maybe an orb weaver that had gotten lost in the leaf litter of the forest, and it took a moment to realize his brother was seeing something that he could not.

Jack couldn't put a name to it, to the color upon the spiders back, and eventually snapped at him when he had gotten too excited and prying with questions, so the walk through the woods, back home, was a much quieter, sullen one.

Unlike his mother, who now snarled at any attempt to touch her, to hold her hand or even tug at her apron to get her attention, the color he saw with his brother kept coming back, the red that bloomed from a scraped knee or paper cut finger or knocked loose tooth.

His brother, however, never spoke of another color with him again.

It didn't occur to him until much, much later what this meant, but by then he was far inland in America, only the fewest of letters still sent back and forth, contact cut off from his family living in another country. 

With Jack's letters sent few and far between, brief, distracted as he had etched his way into a new life, a new name, a new him, the greys and blacks and whites grew ever more encompassing. Sometimes, one could almost tell that there was no color to be had in another's life; he more often saw the dull glaze in bars and on crowded streets, the drag that was starting to wear him down even as he had tried so hard, put his all into his dream.

And then he had met Charlie, and joined circus troupes, the ensuing train crash and Codex Umbra and stage after stage after stage, a whispered promise over and over again that he would explain it all soon, he would, just a little bit longer he just needed a bit more time before he told her-

Perhaps Charlie knew, of the red, the maroon and crimson that followed her in trails that had his old self near choke on his words and look such a fool. When she brushed hands with him, or leaned too close or even sat by his side he swore he could see more to it, that blooming rainbow that he used to hear in tales when he had been young, and it was such a shocking, nerve wracking thing to live with.

If Charlie herself ever saw anything from his presence, she never said much. He could recall only a few times, a passing sentence and word of "lavender", but otherwise she kept her experience to herself.

Which, in turn, made it all the harder for his younger self. The world opening up in near overwhelming ways and even his best friend had nothing to say of it, or at least on that topic.

Sometimes it was on stage, an utterly captivated audience as his "magic" did its part, as his voice filled the theater chambers with a deep timbre echo that rose something fitfully pleased within his chest, and for a moment the greys and black set up enough for flashes instead, the gleam of golden layer led jewelry or dark blues and greens of the audiences formal clothing, browns and blonds and even auburn or ginger sprinkled into the mix, these pale colors that graced him when his audience was enthralled with him and he to them.

Sometimes it was the deep of night, finally retiring to bed after pacing and listening and letting his hands drift those ever talkative pages. Waking from something laying to his chest, to the black out of the light that eventually had him scrambling up and gasping in muted terror, but the greys of the Codex would light and the emblem, _his emblem_ , would brighten to a sharp red he didn't see often, clutching the old tome to himself, backed into a corner and wishing the shadows with their pearly white eyes would _leave him alone-_

In the end, William Carter had been too terrified of the world just lingering outside his vision. 

Maxwell, on the other hand, leaned into the keen interest of the shadows, his magic and the Codex offered to him, and They showed him all that They promised.

 _This is what true sight means,_ They had whispered, hissed and cooed once, gesturing atop the stage surrounded by the mute dull colors of humanity, Charlies bright shining reds like an erupting star just waiting for the right time, _this is what We see-_

And then the world changed, and Maxwell Carter finally saw what _They_ saw.

For a long, long time, he fully convinced himself that he loved it, this reality before his eyes. Nights passed long and harsh and sleep came less and less, Charlie's quiet hinting concerns quieter and quieter, the beautiful reds fading into a brackish stained crimson, the _world_ going silent in favor for Their crooning voices, and Maxwell let it engulf him until the very end.

...Charlie had screamed, when the shadows had finally burst from the Codex, birthed by his attentions and feedings and cares, woes and dreams and worries and so very convoluted, twisted up love, and there had been no colors then, no shadow visions, nothing.

The Throne tied him down, They tugged the last of himself out of his chest with promises and comforts, and then Maxwell was alone in the dark.

And, for a very, very, _very_ long time, he had thought himself to _love_ it all.

It still came, in waves and lapping nightmares and aching dreams, this _love_ that made his sight spotty, vision twisting and swirling in paints that he could no longer comprehend without Their blessing, and it would choke up his throat and chest and squeeze the air from his lungs and this haunting love, no, _obsession_ , it would twist and turn and knot the few lasting pieces of who he was into a confused mess of aching loneliness and _need_.

There was no stage left, here in the Constant, that would ever wish to see him again. There was no longer an audience that would light up and free his chest and stress addled mind with the concept of it all, and there was no longer a center stage left for him to occupy.

 _The Amazing Maxwell_ , he had called himself, and now the shadows graced him with a new name.

 _Maxwell the Former Puppetmaster_ , They hissed to themselves, and oftentimes They spoke in the voices of the many who were trapped here alongside him, _Maxwell the Feeble, Maxwell the Frail, Maxwell the Weak._

_Maxwell the Fool._

Sometimes it sounded of Charlie, her quiet, smooth voice flowing out from the darkness, the hint of laughter from the deep depths of the night.

Sometimes, when she spoke to him, Maxwell could almost swear the old wilted rose pinned to his suit would flare the saddest graying crimson, just for that brief moment in time, before fading back into the blackened grey white of obscurity once more.


End file.
